reddeadfandomcom-20200223-history
Red Dead Wiki:History
The Red Dead Wiki is an online encyclopedia for information on the Red Dead video game series, hosted by Wikia. The wiki's history and evolution into becoming a major source of information for the Red Dead games has began in 2009. Foundation The automatic Wikia message for creating it was sent on June 16th, 2009, with the recipient being Th3warr1or. Th3warr1or made no edits to the wiki, and the wiki had no consistent editors or a noticeable community at the time. It was originally known as the Red Dead Redemption Wiki. On January 26 2010, a user called TeslaRaptor adopted the wiki. In Raptor's early days as the site's new Bureaucrat, he promoted Tiktaalik, TNT LotLP and Raadec to serve as the Wiki's administration team. Raadec was demoted shortly after his promotion, while the other two were also promoted to be Bureaucrats. Under the trio's tenure, the wiki merged with its sister-site, the Red Dead Revolver Wiki, at some point prior to 2011, and was renamed into the Red Dead Wiki. The three also founded the now-defunct "Red Dead Wiki posse" for online gameplay in Red Dead Redemption. A fourth administrator, WugHD2.0, was later promoted, and is counted as one of the wiki's four founders, with him and the original trio gaining the "Veteran" achievement to signify their beginnings on the wiki. A later addition was also Gboyers, the owner of the Grand Theft Wiki and the once-Bureaucrat of the Wikia-owned GTA Wiki. By mid 2010, the Wiki would see growth in terms of new pages, community members and staff, thanks in small part due to the release of Red Dead Redemption to high acclaim and successful sales. New staff members included WouldYouKindly, Doc.Richtofen and KristofferAG as admins, and CoD addict and Annonnimus as rollback users. Both TeslaRaptor and Tiktaalik left departed the wiki around that time; the former due to lack of activity and the latter after requesting to have his rights removed. 2010 - 2012: New staff members, growing community and high activity Following Tiktaalik's departure and TeslaRaptor's inactivity, TNT LotLP promoted several new users to the roles of admins, including Blaff 60, Crowbar, Annonnimus, and future Bureaucrat JackFrost23. The newly established Administrator crew continued to work on the wiki as Red Dead Redemption saw DLC releases throughout the reminder of 2010. 2010 also saw the increasing prominence of JackFrost and two editors called First Tiger Hobbes (now known as Hawbz) and LyHungViet. In 2011, with the declining activity of most administrators, including TNT LotLP, JackFrost23 was officially promoted to Bureaucrat by Wikia, gaining the rights on May 26. As the new head admin of the Red Dead Wiki, JackFrost promoted Hobbes, Ly and another accomplished editor, 2ks4, to administrators. Several pre-Frost era admins, such as Blaff and Annonnimus, continued to contribute the Wiki on a regular basis. September 2011 saw the release of the final Red Dead Redemption DLC, Myths and Mavericks. Despite the game losing its post-release support from Rockstar Games, the Wiki saw steady activity from new members and continued interest in Red Dead. Spawny0908, a popular user on the Wiki, contacted several actors who were involved with the production of Red Dead Redemption, securing interviews with them. The Wiki reached its peak in early 2012, scoring high view rates and consistent editing pace, as well as regular chat activity. The year introduced several new members into the Wiki's staff; Legalize.it was promoted into an administrator after a short term as a chat moderator, while Ilan xd (later known as Raziel Reaper) and Sam samurai were promoted to take her place. Meanwhile, Queyh was given rollback rights alongside Ilan and Sam. 2012 also saw the retirement of Ly from adminship following a fallout with JackFrost. A tragedy struck the Wiki on April 8, 2012; Spawny passed away from infection. Her untimely death was announced by 2ks4 in a blog post, which included tributes from various members of the Wiki's community and Staff, as well as K. Harrison Sweeney, voice actor of the character Irish. 2013 - 2016: Temporary decline, affiliations and new adoptions The GTA Wiki was affiliated with Red Dead Wiki when LS11sVaultBoy contacted JackFrost23 about an affiliation on January 31, 2015. Adoption On July 20, 2016, LS11sVaultBoy adopted the wiki. He then began a large clean up of the wiki. Following the adoption, talk pages were replaced by message boards and Discussions were added. On July 22, 2017, he affiliated Red Dead Wiki with Red Dead Myths Wiki. That same year, LS11sVaultBoy promoted users such as Monkeypolice188, JamesTheNerdKing, and JackiBackiBoy. JamesTheNerdKing created the wiki's offical Discord server on October 26, 2017. He also created the The Spawny Award and Hall of Gunslingers on December 31, 2017. After joining the wiki on October 17, 2017, JackiBackiBoy massively edited the wiki and cleaned it up, resulting in becoming an administrator that same month and a promotion to become a bureaucrat in June 2018. In April 2018, the affiliation with Red Dead Wiki and Red Dead Myths Wiki was ended. In 2018, with Red Dead Redemption II on the horizon, the wiki would gain nearly one hundred thousand views after Rockstar Games released more information on the game. On June 4, 2018 Raziel Reaper returned to the wiki full time and Linus Spacehead was promoted to deputy. On October 5th, 2018, The Supreme Argonian became a Discussions Moderator. He went to work revamping the Discussions of the wiki. A number of users were promoted to be a Discussions Moderator and a Patroller to help monitor the wiki and it's Discussions area as the activity increased. A New Game & A New Era With the release of Red Dead Redemption II, Red Dead Wiki got an increase in activity and received over 4 million views in the first few days following the release. Hundreds of edits were made daily and the wiki's WAM score increased dramatically. The wiki grew and a number of new staff were promoted to handle this increase in activity and users, including on the Wiki's Discord server. On December 7, 2018, wiki adopter and bureaucrat LS11sVaultBoy resigned. His decision was brought about as he decided he didn't want to be an inactive staff member. Following his resignation, JackiBackiBoy became the only bureaucrat on the wiki until Raziel Reaper was promoted in January 2019.